Correspondence
FIEDLER, (SR.) MAUREEN & TAYLOR, (MS.) K. & BRUCE, TOM & Zahn, Gordon C.
Correspondence One-sided or not Mt. Rainier, Md. To the Editors: It just came to my attention that an editorial in your August 12th issue criticized the publication, Nicaragua: A Look at the...
...Edward Cody of the Washington Post recently refuted all charges of anti-Semitism as similarly unfounded...
...Incidentally, you can't tell a revolution by its supporters: Despotic, monarchial France supported the U.S...
...Yes, some...
...We found a free people, proud of their revolution, participating in political and community life as they have never known it before...
...Illustrations: Pages 555, 556, Valery...
...Nobody can really believe that' 'the western side of that balance protects crucial liberties from the encroachment of totalitarianism," as your editorial put it...
...in our dictatorships, dissidents "disappear" or are openly murdered . . .) and the support they receive from the Western democracies, especially the U.S.A...
...bank...
...Is Nicaragua "Marxist...
...Or are you holding back on mat until the cruise and Pershing missiles are securely in place...
...In limited quantities we have the following works: Jesus Christ, the Revelation of God, Christians Active in the World, Faith and the Spiritual Life, and Blessed is the Peace of my Church...
...Canada, $16...
...Copyright© 1983 Commonweal Publishing Co...
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...press: Is Nicaragua "repressive," "totalitarian...
...4. The Sandinistas are indeed not the same as Solidarity...
...Amnesty International offers a similar assessment...
...p. 557, Laurie Smaldone, from Point (Fordham University...
...Reports by visiting U.S...
...We asked hard questions of leaders and citizens alike about the criticisms frequently headlined in the U.S...
...Sandinista leaders themselves admit serious mistakes in dealing with these people, not understanding their culture, language, special needs...
...Unlike the publication by the Intercommunity Center for Peace and Justice which will reach a few hundred people over a long period of time, our "news" media reaches millions of people every day with that propaganda...
...It's far from perfect but our system wasn't fully developed in the 1780's either, shortly after our revolution...
...Boston, Mass...
...From what I read every month in Amnesty International's Monthly Bulletin (not to mention my two recent visits to Cuba, which is a lot more open and free than we are led to believe up here) if I had to live in a dictatorship, I'd far sooner live in the kind that one finds in the Soviet bloc than in those of the "free world...
...the Catholic weekly Prairie Messenger, CUSO, which is our version of the Peace Corps...
...Because that is what I and thousands of other U.S...
...The Catholic church is seriously split between those who favor the revolutionary "process" and those who do not, but stories of persecution are unfounded...
...reaffirming the Monroe Doctrine...
...In their determination to avoid being tagged with a "pacifist" or "isolationist" label, the editors rush to the opposite extreme of accepting ' 'immediate military action, unilateral if necessary" as a response to the installation of weapons aimed at the U.S...
...The ICJP is, however, one of the many groups that found this publication so valuable that they purchased copies with their address for their entire mailing list...
...Single copy, $1.25...
...To the Editors: I welcome Commonweal' s editorial attention to the "Reagan Doctrine" [Aug...
...And our publication deals with those forthrightly and factually by simply printing the most recent report of America's Watch...
...2. Thus, the Russians are imitating the U.S.A., not vice versa, re the Brezhnev Doctrine, with one important difference: For centuries, Russia has been on the receiving, not the dispensing, end of invasions by the countries that border it...
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...SR...
...fears about its national security...
...Telephone: (212) MU 3-2042...
...Oxfam, etc...
...The Sandinistas have bent over backwards to avoid provoking the U.S.A...
...To the Editors: In the article' "The Return of Yves Congar'' by Joseph Komonchak [July 15], the author states ". . . it is even difficult to find his works for sale in Catholic bookstores...
...Those that had some foundation in reality, we covered in the publication...
...That's what we found, and that's what we reported...
...In the face of all this, Nicaragua: A Look at the Reality offers a generally positive (though not uncritical) view of the Sandinista Revolution...
...People have a new sense of responsibility for their own lives...
...They aren't uncritical of the Sandinistas, but they don't call every mistake and fault of this new, young government which has been under fire from the U. S. A. since its birth, a major human rights violation or see these as "proof' that the new regime is a totalitarian dictatorship...
...Those with a positive view of the Sandinistas are often regarded as ' 'uninformed," "one-sided," or possibly "Communist...
...Is Nicaragua persecuting the church, or is it anti-Semitic...
...3. Nobody familar with the numerous dictatorships and police states in the West with their total lack of human rights (the Soviet-bloc countries at least have economic human rights), their horrendous repression (Soviet bloc dissidents go to jail or labor camps...
...foreign, $53...
...behavior there than any U.S...
...Letters of not more than 250 or 300 words naturally have a better chance of being published...
...To the Editors: It just came to my attention that an editorial in your August 12th issue criticized the publication, Nicaragua: A Look at the Reality for making "every attempt to minimize any serious criticism of the Sandinista regime...
...Surely, in the light of the recent bishops' pastoral, some intermediate options might be explored before endorsing what traditional just-war teachings insist must be ' 'last resort.'' My memory may be at fault, but I do not remember that Commonweal has ever been as willing to proclaim theright of the Soviet Union to take s.uch "justifiable" action against weapons aimed at them...
...And when are you going to attack the "Solidarity-can-do-no-wrong" propaganda that appears every day in our "news" media and has been adopted by our "independent" press as well...
...Indeed, Commonweal's anti-Sandinista propaganda will reach more people more quickly than the ICPJ's publication...
...In Canada, the Inter-Church Committee on Human Rights in Latin America...
...Not in our experience...
...12]: 1. The Reagan Doctrine is not so much a case of the U.S.A...
...on the other hand, has been the invader, not the invaded, per Central America/the Caribbean (not to mention sundry other countries in other parts of the world...
...It's the truth as we know it...
...The public debate on Nicaragua has moved so far to the right that what is commonly regarded as a ' 'balanced view'' is considerably right of center...
...as a person who likes to shoot off her mouth a lot, my chances of living to be a little old lady with all of her basic needs taken care of are far better in the former than in the latter...
...Secondly, Nicaragua: A Look at the Reality has appeared at a time when Reagan propaganda has misled even thoughtful people...
...Does Nicaragua have human rights problems...
...But any connotation of Marxism as "atheistic" or "totalitarian" does not apply to Nicaragua...
...defense considerations, a desire to keep the rest of the world from having yet another crack at taking it over rather than any master plan to take over the rest of the world, motivates its behavior (regardless of which political and economic philosophy reigns there now...
...I am most troubled, though, by what appears to be a new Commonweal doctrine...
...the United Church Observer, which is the organ of our largest Protestant denomination...
...expansionism, militarism and opposition to free, independent states within its empire, is far Commonweal welcomes letters on subjects treated in its pages...
...dictatorships over more independent, more democratic governments in the area since the days of Napoleon Bonaparte...
...We found a people just beginning to realize the benefits of an economy based on the needs of the poor majority, proud of their enhanced literacy and health care...
...But the situation has now vastly improved as the Miskitos are receiving the benefits of the revolution...
...And we came away from our visits with deeply saddened hearts, knowing that the Reagan administration is trying to destroy with its aid to the universally hated ' 'contras'' the hopes of a free people...
...We found a people of deep religious faith who, generally speaking, see no contradiction between their revolution and Christianity...
...local neighborhood groups promote wide participation in decision-making...
...Canada, $47...
...Special two-year rate: U.S., $43...
...As a co-editor of that publication, I am compelled to respond...
...Native Americans concur with this view...
...In its current intolerance of the independence movements that have sprung up against its dictatorships in Central America and its attempts to crush them, the U.S.A...
...Is Nicaragua shipping arms to the popular forces in El Salvador...
...adopting the Brezhnev Doctrine as it is the U.S.A...
...Between 1806 and 1933, the U.S.A...
...If we'd found even one truckload of guns, why hasn't it been on CBS Evening News by now...
...foreign, $29...
...Marxism is used as a tool of social and economic analysis, yes...
...actions to subvert the Sandinistas have nothing to do with Sandinista behavior and everything to do with the U.S.A.'s intolerance of a free, independent regime within its empire...
...Only if we fear that the dream of self-determination and a shared economy which benefits the poor will spread throughout Central America and maybe to the United States...
...548, 560, 562, 564, Bas., Tachydromos...
...TOM BRUCE Director of Marketing Commonweal Doctrine...
...12] though I think it could have been more direct than it was...
...Second-class postage paid at New York, N.Y...
...Revolution against Britain...
...First of all, your reading of the publication was obviously superficial since the Quixote Center coordinated publication of this piece (cf...
...support for and determination to reestablish Nicaragua's oppressors leave it no other choice but to turn to the other superpower for support...
...MAUREEN FIEDLER Co-Director, Quixote Center Monroe before Brezhnev Winnipeg, Manitoba To the Editors: Some comments on trie editorial, "Reagan's Doctrine...
...6. If Commonweal could, for a minute, put aside its own hostility towards the Sandinistas: a) it would discover that many religious and other groups speak very positively about the new regime there...
...citizens who have visited Nicaragua have experienced...
...The U.S.A...
...Nicaragua has committed some violations of human rights, but compared with the time of Somoza or other countries in present-day Central America, these are minimal...
...more behind current U.S...
...domestically a democracy, creates and supports some of the most vicious dictatorships on this planet...
...All Canadian and foreign subscriptions must be paid in U.S...
...5. If the Sandinistas have sided with "Poland's oppressors," it is because U.S...
...K. TAYLOR Congar for sale Butler, Wise...
...to take action to subvert them, to no avail, since U.S...
...What about the Miskito Indians...
...MS...
...Yearly subscriptions, U.S., $24...
...Most "serious criticisms" of the Sandinistas don't hold up in the light of the facts...
...10016...
...The U.S.A...
...What we saw and heard much of it from the poor is strongly at variance with the Reagan perspective and many media reports...
...All in all, we came out with a positive assessment of the Nicaraguan Revolution...
...the Introduction), not the Intercommunity Center for Justice and Peace whom you cite...
...in-(Continued on page 574) Correspondence (Continued from page 546) vaded Central America/the Caribbean area over one hundred times, has "historically acted as an outlaw with respect to civil strife in Latin America," and has been the beneficiary and supporter of pro-U.S.A...
...Those of us who visited Nicaragua were not naive, of course...
...Human rights abuses occurred, as our publication documents...
...Editorial subtlety aside, I would have preferred a discussion in the context of what the editors think our "kind of society" should be...
...Your subscribers might be interested in knowing that Clergy Book Service, an Apostolate of the Sacred Heart Fathers and Brothers, does have some of Congar's older works for sale [12855 W. Silver Spring Dr., Butler, WI 53007...
...GORDON c. ZAHN Commonweal, A Review of Public Affairs, Religion, Literature, and the Arts, is published biweekly, except monthly Christmas-New Year's and July and August, by Commonweal Publishing Co., 232 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y...
...National elections are planned for 1985...
...b) If you are going to jump on onesided, propagandistic information about Nicaragua, when are you going to go after the totally negative image of the Sandinistas that we get every day from our "news" media (the same "news" media that kept silent for 40-+ years about the U.S.-backed Somoza dictatorship there...
...The USSR, domestically a dictatorship (something that Russia has been long before the advent of Communism) supports countries fighting to free themselves from dictatorships...
...A number of your readers might well accept the kind of society President Reagan envisions, i.e., the self-appointed crusader against Communism anywhere and everywhere, and might well be prepared to adopt his doctrine...
...No public evidence has ever been put forward by the Reagan administration to prove this charge...
...Is Nicaragua a threat to the United States...
...If this is one-sided, so be it...
...Not from any testimony we heard...
...is behaving as it has always behaved for nearly 200 years in this part of the world...
...Solidarity believed in constantly confronting the Polish government, making greater and greater demands that it wanted satisfied overnight, finally helping to precipitate martial law in Poland and its destruction...
Vol. 110 • October 1983 • No. 18
